Comments

I agree with the 'frat boys' there for the parking lt scene and the broken glass everywhere.......so unsafe I was always ashamed to think that DHs were so slovenly, uncaring, and unsafe! My last show at RFK '95- the police had on RIOT GEAR as they cattled us out of the show. Sooooooo uncalled for and utterly unecessary. I was made to feel criminal. The scene absolutely changed for the worse at most venues as each decade went on. Stadiums in the major cities, yea, there's always a certain police presence- but even outdoor shows in the 80's and 90's got more hostile. it wasn't even the ability of DHs not practicing what they preached, it was a lot of others infiltrating the scene and making it turn bad....Ami

Marye,i do not want to sound to clever,but when you take a seriouse dose of ...than the action of this substance,which starts to enter your system might in some cases induce a very heavy nausea,which as we all know ends up on the floor in little pieces!.... is very powerful and i think it is not fair to stick the people whose body cannot handle it,into the most horrible events column.after walking barefoot on the parking-lot all day,you have to wash your feet anyway.

I noticed that the crowds (NYC, LI, NJ, MD, PA and CT) started to get rowdier towards the late 80's. I saw more "Frat Guys" that couldn't hold their beer causing trouble as the 80's wore on. MSG and Giants Stadium / Meadowlands got pretty ugly at times. If you crossed the NJ Turnpike in the elevated walkway you know what I mean.

At this point on tour the crowds were so big the band couldn't just go walking out in the lot to see what was up themselves. They had to rely on info from band management and others who obviously didn't know the real deal or were just coming at the problem from a money angle.

The quote above seems like a big cop out. Putting the blame on others. Who is the YOU???
The band, the management and the heads created the scene. It's all one!!!
I can't imagine the band would have worded it that way.

Sure things happen at shows. Not just Dead shows either. Dead shows were renown for being peaceful and family-like compared to other bands concerts. But when u have a town sized crowd there will always be incidents. Like in a real town there will be deaths, there will be babies born etc..! OK, but it IS a bit different obviously!

The media reports after Irvine 89' were all about a riot at the front gate. I don't remember any about two bikers fighting but I can imagine it being commented upon. There was no riot as I mentioned. Fights happen, everywhere and anywhere. That's life.
The fact is that the pigs of this world wanted to stop the second flowering of the sumer of love which the Dead and the deadheads were at the forefront of. A lot of those venues seemed to be run by pigs or they folded under pressure from pigs.

We shouldn't forget how Bush 1 started the persecution of deadheads on a nationwide federal level. He was in the CNN tower, Atlanta during a Dead show and saw the heads out the window in the lot below. He commented that he thought that stuff had died out with the 60s and that he was disgusted by it and that something had to be done to stop it. The birth of Operation Dead End. The effort of the feds to destroy the scene. Pressure on concert venues, flooding the lot with cheap heroin, busting masses of young kids dealing in the lot and giving them 20 year sentences, spreading misinformation to confuse folks and make them not trust each other.

If there were not enough portatoilets or garbage receptacles then who is responsible? You or the management?

If some locals got to drunk on bud and had a fight at the show instead of at the local bar and pee'd on someones lawn who is responsible? You or them?

If a lost soul od's because they had a shit upbringing in a hard world who is responsible? You or the kid, the parents, the system?

The tourheads were the best audience a band could dream of. They were the ones reading those stupid flyers, not the locals who made the little problems. What a slap in the face! The ones behind the flyers should have been doing more to help the scene, they didn't do their job properly. And as for the feds... who are they serving that they put kids into prison for 20 year terms? You? I think not!

We did SO MUCH good!!!!! I am proud of that and so should everyone involved! Somehow the band picked up on it despite the misinformation too! When they would sing, we will get by, don't u let that deal go down and such lines in times when many had been busted on a particular day etc..!

Don't buy the misinformation about why we couldn't play certain venues KJ7XJ and family!!!

I got a chance to hit the east coast running in 92 and the show I saw in Burgettstown PA it was a logistical nightmare. (parking,security,vending,etc...) No more Burgettstown Shows

I was at Irvine 89 when 2 bikers got in to it and you can hear the ambulances on the aud tapes (2nd set ater d/s)(I think there was a knife involved) No more Irvine after that

I was also at the LA Forum in 89 and some poor spaced out kid died in the back of a patrol car.... No more LA forum shows

I was at Cal State Dominquez Hills in 1990 and some gal left the concert and took her life...No more CSDH shows..

I think the letter passed out (from GDP) at the CalExpo run in 88 or 89 said it all. "You created this sceene, you'll end this sceene." There were similiar letters that went around the parking lots before and after, but the oneI got around that time I still have in my collection somewhere and it rings true.

I saw some great shows but unfortunatly I saw them at the last times they band would play these great venues.

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